Greece has asked the European Union to speed up the relocation to other member states of migrants and refugees in the country under a plan agreed last year to ease pressure on frontline countries Greece and Italy.

Under the plan, 160,000 asylum seekers could be relocated over two years, but so far just under 4,000 people have been relocated from Greece and Italy to other European countries.

“At the moment we have 7,000 people ready to be relocated and no answers from the European Union member states which would be obliged to accept them,” Greek Migration Minister Yannis Mouzalas told journalists.

Only 3% of the more than a million migrants arriving in Italy and Greece in 2015 were returned to their countries of origin or relocated across the EU as refugees, figures released by the European Commission today (10 February) revealed.

The United Nations refugee agency has refused to be involved in the refugee returns organised by the EU under its recent deal with Turkey, claiming that the so-called “hotspots” on the Greek islands, where refugees and migrants were received, assisted, and registered, have become prisons.